Archive for Hall of Fame

Three years ago, Chris Sale appeared to be pretty close to the end of the line. After missing the abbreviated 2020 season due to Tommy John surgery, he made just 11 starts totaling 48 1/3 innings in 2021–22 while battling further injuries, including a stress fracture of a rib and fractures of his left pinky and right wrist. When he was sidelined by yet another stress fracture — this one in his scapula — in June 2023, he missed 10 weeks, and his ERA ballooned to 4.88 after returning to make half a dozen starts. It was fair to think the 34-year-old lefty’s most productive days were behind him, as his wiry 6-foot-6 frame could no longer withstand the rigors of regular duty.

Lo and behold, Sale made a strong showing over his final three starts of 2023, capturing the attention of the Braves, who traded infielder Vaughn Grissom to the Red Sox in a straight-up exchange in December 2023 and soon restructured his contract. Sale rewarded Atlanta’s faith by winning both the pitching Triple Crown (with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA, and 225 strikeouts) and the Cy Young award that had long eluded him. Though he was limited to 20 starts last year by a fractured rib, he has continued to dominate; this year, the 37-year-old southpaw ranks second in the NL in ERA (2.20), FIP (2.26), and strikeout rate (30.6%) behind Cy Young favorite Jacob Misiorowski, as well as third in FanGraphs WAR (4.9) behind The Miz and Cristopher Sánchez. And while he’s “only” sixth in Baseball Reference WAR (4.5), Sale’s run with the Braves has pushed his S-JAWS past 2025 Hall of Fame inductee CC Sabathia (50.8). Sale won’t catch any of the big four from this era — Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, and Max Scherzer, the last of whom may be the only one active after this season — but he’s the only other active or recently retired starter with an S-JAWS above 45.0. As voters scramble to recalibrate their Hall of Fame standards for starting pitchers in an age of diminished workloads, Sale has likely punched his ticket to Cooperstown.

It hasn’t been a great season for veterans vying to shore up their Hall of Fame credentials, as I noted on Monday, with injuries sidelining hopefuls such as Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, José Ramírez, Juan Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton, and age seemingly catching up to Jose Altuve, Manny Machado, and others. Yet Sale isn’t alone among mid-career players who have advanced their causes. What follows here is a partial position-by-position roundup of some others whose odds of earning a spot Cooperstown have improved this season, at least by my reckoning. Not every position is covered, and at some positions, the top candidates wound up in the previous installment because their chances have taken a hit. I’ve included each player’s JAWS standing, his 2026 WAR (Baseball Reference’s version unless otherwise indicated), and his ZiPS rest-of-season projection. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, though he missed the first two and a half months of this season due to bilateral epicondylitis, Giancarlo Stanton bashed 24 homers in 77 games while hitting for a 158 wRC+ and 1.8 bWAR. Despite its half-season nature, the campaign was his strongest since 2021, and it appeared as though he had enough momentum to reach 500 home runs and, quite likely, secure a spot in the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Stanton has once again been unable to stay on the field. After straining his right calf in late April and then reinjuring it while rehabbing in mid-June, he suffered a moderate-grade left calf strain last week, one that may very well prevent him from playing again this season.

Manager Aaron Boone said on Saturday that Stanton strained his left calf while running the bases earlier in the week. He didn’t offer a timetable for the slugger’s return, but conceded, “We’re at a point in the calendar where it gets challenging… You all know how bad he wants to be on that field and contributing to a championship… Hopefully we just continue working to get him right and healthy.”

The 36-year-old Stanton has played in just 24 games this season, batting .256/.302/.422 (103 wRC+) with just three homers in 96 plate appearances. Those three homers boosted his career total to 456, the most of any active player, but they’ve run critical time off of his clock, so to speak. By colleague Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS-driven estimate, Stanton had a 71% chance of reaching 500 homers coming into the season, but per Dan’s hot-off-the-presses estimate, those odds are down to 51%, and to these eyes that still feels high. Stanton’s MVP award, two home run titles, five All-Star appearances, postseason performance (.254/.322/.605 with 18 homers) and otherworldly Statcast numbers might be enough to overcome a slight shortage in JAWS, but with just 47.0 career WAR (the Baseball Reference version, which is true for all of the figures cited here unless otherwise indicated), 35.4 peak WAR, and 41.2 JAWS, he’s just 37th among right fielders, 14.8 points below the standard. I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Read the rest of this entry »

COOPERSTOWN, NY — “I took pride in playing second base, a position that keeps you in every play and demands toughness, but my bat was always my ticket,” said Jeff Kent during his Hall of Fame induction speech on Sunday. “I learned a long time ago from Tommy Lasorda, one of the best motivators in the game, a simple truth that I lived by my whole career: The money lies in the RBIs.”

Kent’s philosophy cut straight to the heart of a decades-long culture war within baseball, one that helps to explain why the slugging second baseman spent 10 years on the writers’ ballot without coming close to the necessary 75% needed for election, but sailed in on his first appearance on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee last December. Hardly the darling of statheads — he ranks 22nd in JAWS at his position, for example, and only twice ranked among his league’s top 10 in Baseball Reference WAR — his prickly persona sometimes rubbed teammates and media the wrong way, but his candidacy resonated for Era Committee voters. Chockfull of executives and Hall of Fame players, the handpicked panel was more familiar with old-school measures and more inclined to reward his reputation for being free of performance-enhancing drugs, in contrast to statistically superior longtime teammate and fellow Era Committee candidate Barry Bonds, who was not elected. “Most home runs by a second baseman” played better than “most home runs all-time” thanks to the absence of a theoretical asterisk.

Along with Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, Kent was inducted in front of an estimated crowd of 12,000 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Clark Sports Center. Including this year’s three inductees, a record 60 living Hall of Famers were onstage, but their audience was comparatively sparse, well short of the estimated 30,000 who showed up last year for the inductions of Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, and the late Dick Allen and Dave Parker.

All weekend long, comparisons between last year’s Induction Weekend and this one were inescapable and inevitable. Throngs of colorfully outfitted fans of the Mariners, Yankees, Astros, Phillies, and Pirates filled the streets of Cooperstown in 2025, the town was abuzz, and thanks to the timely new Yakyu Baseball exhibit — dedicated to the interchange between American and Japanese baseball — the Hall itself was packed with visitors. While a sizable contingent of Puerto Rican fans turned out for Beltrán, the streets were scarcely populated and decidedly less colorful this year. The Hall had new displays devoted to Tom Seaver memorabilia and the 50th anniversary of Rick Monday’s rescue of an American flag that was about to be set ablaze at Dodger Stadium, but this year brought no new marquee exhibit, and the Clark Sports Center field had a lot more visible, unoccupied grass.

Chalk that up to the particularities and peculiarities of this year’s class. Few Hall of Famers in any year have the international appeal of the iconic Suzuki, who came within one vote of unanimous election and addressed the omission with grace and humor in his speech. And whether they were first-year, 10th-year, or Era Committee honorees, each of the other four Class of 2025 members took unique roads to Cooperstown. They or surviving family members told gripping stories of the obstacles they surmounted.

By contrast, this year’s class of inductees lacked such universal appeal and didn’t capture fans’ imagination in the same way — at least not enough to plan a weekend trip to Cooperstown during high season. Some of the obstacles they surmounted to get elected owed to conduct that made them polarizing figures, even if it wasn’t viewed as disqualifying. Far from immortality, Beltrán, Jones, and Kent proved themselves all too human during their playing careers. Most notably, Beltrán, a nine-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner, and one of just eight players with at least 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, was the only player identified by name in commissioner Rob Manfred’s 2019 report on the Astros’ illegal electronic sign-stealing efforts. That exposure cost Beltrán his post as the manager of the Mets before he could even fill out a lineup card. Even as the ninth-ranked center fielder in JAWS, he wasn’t elected until his fourth ballot.

Jones reached the majors as a teenager, and went on to win 10 Gold Gloves while bopping 434 home runs and helping the Braves to 10 straight playoff appearances during his career. He ranks 11th in JAWS among center fielders, but declined rapidly in his 30s due to lax conditioning; done after his age-35 season, he finished with just 1,933 hits, fewer than any other post-1960 player elected by the writers. He disappeared from the majors after being arrested on a domestic battery charge in December 2012. (He pleaded guilty to a lesser disorderly conduct charge.) He received just 7.3% of the vote in his first ballot appearance in 2018, and needed nine years to gain entry from the writers.

Kent, a five-time All-Star and former MVP, didn’t do anything that rose to the level of either classmate’s transgressions, but in March 2002 he broke a bone in his left wrist, which he initially claimed happened while washing his truck. It soon surfaced through eyewitness accounts that he had crashed doing wheelies while riding his motorcycle, in violation of his contract. As scandals go, it was comparatively quaint; the incident became the butt of jokes, but the Giants showed leniency. Kent wound up missing just four games and turned in a season to rival his MVP-winning one from two years earlier while helping the Giants reach their first World Series since 1989.

Beyond that, during his 18-year career with the Blue Jays, Mets, Cleveland, the Giants, Astros, and Dodgers, Kent could be off-putting. “I had a habit of running my mouth,” he said in his speech regarding his early years with the Mets. At the tail end of his career, he also openly criticized what he perceived to be a lack of professionalism from his young Dodgers teammates. By his own account, he had more physical confrontations with Bonds than just the famous dugout blowup in 2002, though even in the aftermath of that incident he claimed, “We have a good relationship. We have a working relationship that I think works well on the field… I think if you guys [the media] try to create a dysfunctional relationship, that’s a farce too, because that’s not true.”

In a refreshing development, the now-58-year-old Kent has not shied from publicly displaying his emotions and his gratitude in connection with his election. That willingness to break character made his the most interesting speech of Sunday. “I’ll try not to cry now, but it’s coming, no doubt,” he said as he began his speech. A minute later, he was struggling to retain his composure as he recounted the story of his father, a Southern California police officer, promising to buy him a pickup truck if he earned a college scholarship — one he still has in his garage “as a reminder that some of the simplest things can change the entire direction of your life.”

“Standing on this stage reminds me why different people come and connect to this game,” he continued. “For some it’s a shared passion, a time spent with family and friends, for others it’s an opportunity. For me it was just a simple plan of a college education and a better way of life for my family.”

During a post-induction media session, the San Francisco Standard’s John Shea identified five times since the announcement of his election at which Kent has cried publicly. Kent didn’t dispute the count or the characterization of his softer side. “I don’t think I’m mad as much as I used to be,” he said. “You know, when you play this game, you have to play with a little hatred — I use that word lightly. People call it cockiness, or arrogance, or confidence. They call it so much, but you have to play this game with a chip on the shoulder.”

“I’m not mad any more, maybe that’s why,” he continued. “I’m a deflector, and I think I’ve deflected so much that now I have to reason with it and appreciate it,” he said, referring to the publicity and plaudits coming his way since being elected, and experiencing all of that in front of his family, from whom he spared that chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.

Kent did mention Bonds once in his speech, calling him “one of the most talented players this game has ever seen” without delving into the two stars’ conflicts. Nonetheless, his frequent repetition of phrases like “playing the game the right way” couldn’t be read as anything other than veiled references to the PED-linked players who overshadowed him during his career and on ballots, particularly when he spoke of the late Ryne Sandberg, who was a vocal critic of such players and who served on the 2023 Era Committee that rejected Bonds.

Back to the RBIs. Kent singled out former Mets teammate Eddie Murray’s counseling him that the key to staying cool in bases-loaded situations was to focus on getting the runner home from third base. “That lesson of keeping things simple stayed with me forever,” he said. Kent drove in 100 or more runs eight times during a high-offense era, in part because he hit behind Bonds as the slugger set records for bases on balls, intentional and otherwise. Yet, Kent only ranked among his league’s top 10 in a slash stat five times — twice apiece in batting average and slugging percentage, and once in on-base percentage. He was a prolific home run hitter for a middle infielder, clubbing 377 total and 351 as a second baseman, but his modest on-base percentages and subpar defensive metrics limited his value. Still, while his JAWS is below 13 of the other 20 enshrined second basemen, he’s third out of 10 among those elected by committees.

The 49-year-old Jones followed Kent by beginning with a nod to the giants at his position. “I feel like a rookie today surrounded by all these amazing Hall of Famers behind me,” he said. “There are so many guys here that I loved to watch play, and I’m happy to be here with them today. I never got to see Willie Mays play, so Ken Griffey [Jr.] was my guy. I wanted to be like him. For me and Carlos to join Griffey, Willie, and these other great center fielders in the Hall of Fame, it’s hard to put into words.”

“You can go 0-for-4 and still impact the game by taking away singles and extra-base hits. I worked hard on my routes and a preparation. I wanted to be the best center fielder,” said Jones.

The first player from the tiny island of Curaçao to be elected to the Hall of Fame paid tribute to Hensley Meulens, the first Curaçao native to reach the majors, and listed more than a dozen of the countrymen who have followed, including current major leaguers Ozzie Albies, Kenley Jansen, and Ceddanne Rafaela. He spoke of his father, Henry Jones, a legendary amateur player who caught and played center field for Curaçao’s national team in the 1960s and ’70s, and who passed away 10 years ago:

“He showed me how to work hard and play for what it takes to become a successful baseball player and a great person. Because he played center field, I wanted to be a center fielder, and he passed down every bit of knowledge [of] the game to me, like how to read balls off the bat. He hit me fly balls from foul pole to foul pole every time in Curaçao so I could track balls down, because the ocean breeze made tracking balls very difficult on the island.”

Jones also paid tribute to the other seven Hall of Famers from the 1990s and 2000s Braves teams on which he starred, namely manager Bobby Cox, general manager John Schuerholz, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Fred McGriff, and “my brother from another mother,” Chipper Jones, who debuted on the 2018 ballot alongside Andruw and “pushed for me, for my induction, for many years.”

While Chipper was one of four players elected on that 2018 ballot, Andruw nearly lost his eligibility; his 7.3% share now stands as the lowest of any player elected by the writers since the five-year waiting period was instituted in 1954. “A lot of my friends that follow the percentages closer than I did were like, ‘Hey, you’re barely hanging there,’” said Jones in his post-induction media session. “I was just happy to hang in there, [happy] that the writers kept me on the ballot. Getting in after nine years — I didn’t say I had to be the first ballot, I didn’t say I had to be the sixth year, the seventh year, or the last year, or get voted in by the Veterans Committee. I’m in the Hall of Fame now, so that’s all that matters.”

Like Jones, the 49-year-old Beltrán felt as though he were back at the beginning of his career on Sunday, opening his speech by saying, “This is the closest thing to my first at-bat in the big leagues, where I felt excited to be here but at the same time I felt very nervous. These guys really make me nervous,” he said, gesturing to the Hall of Famers behind him.

While Beltrán did not directly address the sign-stealing scandal during Sunday’s speech, it wasn’t far out of mind, particularly as the text on his plaque mentioned his “20-year career that ended in 2017 as World Series champion.” He thanked commissioner Manfred in his speech, as well as the voters: “To the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, I want to say thank you for making me a Hall of Famer… And for those that didn’t [vote for me] — that saw things different — I want to say also thank you. I appreciate your perspective. If baseball has really taught me something, I want to say is that I hope in life, we continue to measure ourselves by the same standard we have used to measure others.”

Beltrán did address the sign-stealing scheme earlier in the week during a Zoom session with reporters, saying, “[T]he fact that I’m the only player mentioned — I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. Sometimes it still gives me a bad taste in my mouth.” Later, he added, “I know that as a team we got together to do what we did, but I’ve got to tell you that this was not like one player’s idea.”

In that session, Beltrán added that after seeing Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow, manager A.J. Hinch, and bench coach-turned-Boston-manager Alex Cora lose their jobs, he knew he couldn’t last as Mets manager. “I feel like [Manfred] mentioning Carlos Beltrán in the report, that was my suspension.”

With Carlos Mendoza recently fired, Beltrán may yet get his shot to manage the Mets, for whom he’s currently a special assistant to president of baseball operations David Stearns. Within his speech, he explained his choice to wear a Mets cap on his plaque:

“Every organization shapes your career. New York shaped my life. It was here where I experienced my greatest success and some of my greatest challenges. Playing for the Mets made me a better man and a better leader. Many of the most meaningful relationships that I was able to build in my career, I did it wearing a Mets uniform. So the Mets cap, what it represents to me is growth and it represents a place where I became the best version of myself.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Beltrán saluted his fellow Puerto Rican Hall of Famers, as well as his mentors, such as Royals legend George Brett (“who taught me that greatness is built long before anybody is watching”), Astros teammates Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, who taught him the importance of playing with pain, and Giants legends Mays and Willie McCovey, with whom he would talk baseball as often as possible during his two months with San Francisco in 2011. As Puerto Rican flags waved, he delivered substantial passages of his speech in Spanish, harkening to his influential role in mandating the presence of translators in every major league clubhouse.

Induction Weekend’s festivities weren’t confined to Sunday. Friday evening featured a cocktail party to celebrate this year’s winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, Paul Hoynes, the beat reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer since 1983. The party takes place on the back porch of the Hotel Otesaga, where new and returning Hall of Famers and their immediate families stay for the weekend — and where entry to everyone else is by invitation only, with signs explicitly warning, “NO AUTOGRAPHS.” The porch opens up onto a breathtaking vista starring Lake Otsego, a view that never gets old.

Saturday’s Hall of Fame Awards Presentation, conducted at the Glimmerglass Festival Theater about eight miles outside of Cooperstown, honored Hoynes as well as broadcaster Joe Buck, the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award; Monday, for the golden anniversary of his notable rescue effort; and Bill White, winner of the Buck O’Neil Award. The last of those, which is presented no more than once every three years, honors “an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal, and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to the qualities exhibited by O’Neil.”

The choice of White for that honor was particularly resonant, at least to this scribe. Though he was an eight-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner at first base during his 13-year playing career, White didn’t accrue the kind of numbers that themselves typically drive election. He did start for the Cardinals’ 1964 World Series winners, and while with that organization, he made an impact by speaking on the record about the shoddy treatment of the team’s Black players, including Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, as well as himself. His exposure to those players’ not being invited to a St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce’s “Salute to Baseball” breakfast held in a segregated hotel led the Cardinals to press for integrated lodging for spring training, a trend that spread to other teams training in segregated Florida.

White followed his impressive career with pioneering roles as a broadcaster and executive. In 1971, he began an 18-year run calling Yankees games and working for national networks, one that made him the first full-time Black play-by-play broadcaster in any sport. After retiring from broadcasting, he spent five years (1989–94) as president of the National League, making him the first Black person to assume such a post and the highest-ranking Black executive in any sport at the time. As a candidate for election on the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, he fell two votes short.

“This award is meaningful, because when I grew up, I never imagined a life in baseball,” White said in a prerecorded video accepting his award. “Baseball was a way to earn money for medical school. But signing a contract with the New York Giants put me on a different path. Rooming with Willie Mays helped me become a better baseball player. I played with and against some of the greats of the game. Some of the best years of my life were as a broadcast partner with ‘Scooter,’ Phil Rizzuto. We had a lot of fun, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. I was so happy to see him elected to the Hall of Fame. And finally, the years I spent as president of the National League and on the Hall of Fame board were amazing. During my time at the National League, we added a couple of new teams and I helped contribute to the game’s growth, and I want to thank the board for this honor.”

During Saturday night’s cocktail party in the Hall of Fame plaque gallery — the highlight of my Induction Weekend every year, an event that’s like watching a childhood baseball card collection come to life — I summoned the courage to introduce myself to the 92-year-old White, who was holding court in the Hall’s lobby. After congratulating him, I expressed my hope he still might be elected to the Hall proper. He thanked me and said words to the effect that he was more than satisfied with this honor. “I used to run this place, you know,” he said, referring to his presence on the board of directors starting in 2000.

Somehow, his dealing with that less-than-perfect outcome felt like a metaphor for the entire weekend. This year’s induction festivities may not have been everybody’s favorite celebration or celebrants, but it wasn’t hard to find something to take from each of their roads to Cooperstown.

“If Bobby [Cox] wasn’t here, he’d be one of the leading candidates for the job. A new broom sweeps clean. That’s all,” said Braves owner Ted Turner at the October 8, 1981 press conference to announce the dismissal of the manager who had piloted the team for the previous four seasons, with just one finish above .500. Known then as one of baseball’s most controversial, impulsive, hands-on owners — so hands-on that he had even managed the team for one night, only to be prohibited from doing so again — Turner admitted that he was making a change for change’s sake.

The Braves would win the NL West in 1982 under new manager Joe Torre, but not until Turner rehired Cox as general manager after the ’85 season — just after he’d managed the Blue Jays to their first division title — and focused on building from within instead of chasing expensive free agents did the team sustain its success. Once Cox returned to the dugout in mid-1990, he led the Braves to 14 division titles, five pennants, and a championship in 15 seasons (1991–2005), interrupted only by a second-place finish in strike-shortened 1994. He added a wild card berth in his final season (2010) for a record-setting 16 playoff appearances in 29 seasons of managing. He won four Manager of the Year awards, and on the 2014 Expansion Era Committee ballot, alongside Torre and Tony La Russa, he was elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame.

Cox won more regular season games (2,504) than all but Connie Mack, La Russa, and John McGraw. He ranks third all-time in games above .500 (503), fifth in games managed (4,508), sixth in losses (2,001), and 19th in winning percentage (.556) at a 1,000-game cutoff. Aided by expanded playoffs, he’s first all-time in postseason losses (69), second in games managed (136) behind only Torre, and fourth in wins (67). He’s also the all-time leader in managerial ejections with 162, 41 more than McGraw. The count undergirded his reputation as a players’ manager. “If I were on the field, I’d want the manager sticking up for me,” Cox once said. “Sometimes players are dead wrong, ranting and raving, but you stick up for them. They appreciate that.”

“He treats you like a man. He’s very simple in what he wants,” said Tom Glavine in 1999. “He doesn’t have a whole lot of rules. You show up on time, and you show up ready to play, and you play the game the right way.”

Brash and often profane, or at least offensive, Turner earned nicknames such as “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South” for confrontational statements, ostentatious womanizing, and self-aggrandizement. Anecdotes from his early years owning the Braves could fill a book. He eschewed the executive suite for a seat behind the home dugout, often appeared in the clubhouse wearing jeans and boat shoes, and took up chewing tobacco to fit in with players. In 1978, the New York Times’ Roger Vaughan called him “an interesting blend of Southern gentleman and funky downhome goofhead cousin in whose vernacular the words ‘sir’ and ‘ain’t’ nestle compatibly. It is an ideal combination for selling baseball in Atlanta.”

By the mid-1980s, with Cox in the fold, Turner learned to leave baseball to his baseball people and focused more on his cable television empire, where he proved to be a visionary, taking the Braves nationwide via Superstation TBS, founding the Cable News Network, purchasing the libraries of MGM films to broadcast on Turner Classic Movies and Hanna-Barbera cartoons to air on the Cartoon Network. In 1996, he merged his conglomerate — which included the Braves — with Time Warner, creating what was hailed as the world’s largest communications company, and became vice chairman while surrendering control of the Braves. After the Braves moved from Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to their new ballpark, Turner Field, in 1997, he retained a presence at their games for several more years. He remained with Time Warner after AOL purchased it in 2001, though his prominence in the corporate hierarchy was reduced.

“For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster,” said Turner in October 1996, after completing the sale. “But buying the Braves was a good move. As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, they did well.”

After selling his company, Turner put his money toward humanitarian and conservation efforts. In 1997, he donated $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation, supporting the UN and its causes; at the time it was the largest philanthropic gift in history. He became the fourth-largest landowner in the U.S., using his two million acres spread across 13 ranches for sustainable agriculture and managing the world’s largest private bison herd.

Turner died on May 6 at age 87. He had suffered from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, since being diagnosed in 2018. Cox died on May 9 at age 84, after battling numerous health issues following a massive stroke in 2019. Their deaths followed the May 4 passing of John Sterling, a play-by-play broadcaster for the Braves from 1982–87 who gained greater fame in that role with the Yankees.

That’s a rough stretch for Braves fans, even with the team currently making a strong rebound from a rare losing season (76-86) that ended a run of seven straight postseason appearances and a 2021 World Series championship. While Turner and Cox didn’t do it alone — scouting director Paul Snyder, Hall of Fame GM John Schuerholz, and pitching coach Leo Mazzone figured prominently, and pitchers Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz, center fielder Andruw Jones, and third baseman Chipper Jones built Hall of Fame careers with the Braves — the late great tandem raised the bar for Atlanta baseball.

“Whatever truth is to be found in it, the following is incontrovertible,” wrote the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Ken Sugiura. “It would seem a near impossibility for another two-person team to have a greater impact on sports in Atlanta than Turner and Cox. Turner was the dynamic owner who stopped at nothing to support the team. Cox was the steady skipper who delivered Atlanta — a fan base whose sporting history is draped in heartache and failure — its most consistent winner, and arguably its grandest moment, the 1995 World Series championship.”

…

Robert Joe Cox was born on May 21, 1941 in Tulsa, Oklahoma to J.T. Cox, an electrician, and Willie Mae (Hendrix) Cox, a store clerk. When the young Cox was three years old, his family moved to Selma, California, a farming community in the San Joaquin Valley. He grew up a Cardinals fan because the team based a Class-C affiliate in nearby Fresno, and idolized Stan Musial. At Selma High School, he played baseball, football, and basketball. In 1959, legendary Dodgers scout (and later pitching coach) Red Adams recruited him out of Reedley Junior College to sign for a hefty $40,000 bonus.

Cox spent five years in the Dodgers’ system (1960–64), splitting time between second base and third and climbing as high as Double-A Albuquerque in 1964. In November of that year, the Cubs chose him in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft; he spent 1965 at their Triple-A Salt Lake City affiliate, then on April 28, 1966 was traded to the Braves. After a strong 1967 season at Triple-A Richmond, he was dealt to the Yankees for catcher Bob Tillman and pitcher Dale Roberts on December 7, 1967.

In the spring of 1968, the going-on-27-year-old Cox initially won a reserve spot on the Yankees; when 23-year-old third baseman Mike Ferraro slumped and was sent down to Triple-A Syracuse, Cox took over for him. He played regularly in 1968, and even earned Topps All-Star Rookie honors, but was reduced to a bench role in ’69, when 23-year-old Bobby Murcer won the third base job, and then a platoon role after Murcer moved to right field. Across two seasons, Cox hit a combined .225/.310/.309 (87 wRC+) with nine homers and 1.6 WAR, and endeared himself to manager Ralph Houk, who called him “an old-fashioned ball player… comes to work early, keeps busy, hones his bat, talks baseball all the time and thinks baseball all the time. He has his limitations, of course, but you can’t help rooting for him.”

“My knees were shot by the time I got to the major leagues. I struggled a little bit when I was up there,” Cox told Kevin Newell in a 2009 interview. “But I loved it. It was a great experience. I had the opportunity to play alongside Mickey Mantle in 1968.”

After spending 1970 at Syracuse, Cox retired as a player. The Yankees believed he was worth keeping around, hiring him to manage the team’s A-level Fort Lauderdale affiliate, which went 71-70 in 1971. In 1972, Cox managed Double-A West Haven of the Eastern League to an 84-56 record and a division championship. He spent 1973–76 managing Syracuse, finishing above .500 each year and winning the International League championship in ’76 after going 82-57. During that time, he oversaw dozens of future major leaguers, most notably Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor, and Ron Guidry.

In 1977, Cox joined the Yankees as first base coach under Billy Martin, alongside Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, and Dick Howser. “I got to know those guys really well. Pick their brains here and there,” he told Newell. After that team won the World Series, Turner hired the 36-year-old Cox to manage the Braves, replacing the fired Dave Bristol. “We’re hoping Bobby can be the manager to lead us to the promised land as soon as possible,” said Turner. “His credentials, background, and experience were just what the doctor ordered.”

Cox understood the tall task ahead, saying, “We lost 101 games last year, so obviously there is the need for a lot of work… Our top pitcher (Phil Niekro) won 16 games and lost 20 and our next-best pitcher (Dick Ruthven) won seven games. We definitely need pitching, that’s all there is to it. You can’t win without pitching.”

…

Robert Edward Turner III was born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati to father Robert Edward Turner Jr. (known as Ed) and Florence Rooney Turner. Ed was a Mississippi native whose family grew cotton; he moved to Ohio during the Great Depression. When Ted was nine, the family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Ed started a billboard advertising company. While growing up, Ted suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father, whom he nonetheless strove to please. He romanticized his harsh treatment, telling The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta in 2001, “He thought that people who were insecure worked harder, and I think that’s probably true. I don’t think I ever met a superachiever who wasn’t insecure to some degree.”

Ted attended the Georgia Military Academy, the military program at Chattanooga’s McCallie School, and then Brown University, where he was vice president of the debating union and captain of the sailing team. His choice of studies angered his father, whose disdainful letter Ted published in the campus paper: “I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today… I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me.”

While Ted later switched to economics, he was suspended twice and ultimately expelled for multiple infractions of having women in his dorm room. After leaving Brown and spending six months in the Coast Guard to fulfill his military service obligation, he returned to Georgia to join his father’s company. But even while expanding the business, Ed spiraled downwards while battling depression as well as alcohol and drug abuse. On March 5, 1963, Ed committed suicide at age 53. Deeply in debt, he had agreed to sell the company’s largest division, but the 24-year-old Ted decided to keep it, returning the down payment and paying a penalty for annulling the deal.

Turner pushed the company to greater success than his father had, and kept up with competitive sailing, trying out unsuccessfully for the 1964 Olympics. By 1970, bored of billboards, he bought a money-losing UHF television station, Channel 17, which ran fifth out of five stations in the Atlanta market. He renamed the station WTCG, which stood both for Turner Communications Group and its slogan: “Watch This Channel Grow.” The station ran old movies, classic cartoons, and syndicated sitcoms like Andy Griffith and The Beverly Hillbillies. In 1973, Turner acquired broadcasting rights for both the Braves and the NBA’s Hawks, providing WTCG with bulk programming. He bid $600,000 for the Braves’ rights, triple what the previous rights-holder, WSB, had been paying, and agreed to televise three times as many games, going from 20 to 60 per year. Turner expanded his station’s range beyond Atlanta by relaying WTCG’s signal using microwave dishes throughout the Southeast. Cable systems picked up the station.

However, the Braves were flailing. They went 67-94 in 1975 while ranking 11th in a 12-team league in attendance. An ownership group from Boston sought to purchase the team and move it to Toronto. Fearful of losing his programming, in January 1976, Turner purchased the team for $500,000 in cash and $8 million at 6% annual interest over 10 years — giving him a complete inventory of 162 games to broadcast; in 1977, he bought the Hawks, as well. Meanwhile, changes in FCC rules allowed over-the-air broadcasters to use RCA’s communications satellite to transmit their signal to cable providers, facilitating the ability for WTCG to go national. The station had two million subscribers by the end of 1976 and reached all 50 states by the end of ’78; its value had increased by $40 million. In 1979, it would be rechristened Superstation WTBS. Around this time, Turner branded the Braves as “America’s Team.”

Thanks to the landmark Messersmith-McNally decision that opened the floodgates for free agency, baseball’s landscape was changing, too. Turner’s opening salvo was to sign Andy Messersmith, the three-time All-Star who successfully challenged the reserve clause, to a three-year, $1 million deal in April 1976, and assign him jersey no. 17, with CHANNEL in place of MESSERSMITH above it — free advertising for his station, at least until NL president Chub Feeney cracked down in late May. At that time, Feeney also ordered Turner to stop playing poker with his players, and disallowed contractual incentives based on the team’s performance and attendance.

As if Turner needed even more ways to set himself apart from other owners, for the Braves’ 1976 home opener, he led the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium crowd in singing a pregame “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” rode a chariot while racing ostriches against the team’s broadcasters, and climbed onto the field to congratulate right fielder Ken Henderson after he homered.

OTD in 1976, Ted Turner competed with Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren, and Ernie Johnson in a pre-game Ostrich race. The idea was a one lap around the warning track heat, but the Ostriches apparently weren't clear on the course. Ted and the announcers even wore custom racing silks. pic.twitter.com/frKd3Jn0hf

— Braves Historian (@BravesHistorian) July 26, 2024

Another pregame promotion called for players to race while pushing baseballs with their noses from third base to home plate. After Braves players balked at participating, director of public relations Bob Hope (not the legendary entertainer) interrupted the owner’s dinner with the Reverend Jesse Jackson and asked him to race Phillies reliever Tug McGraw. Turner won, bloodying his face in the process.

On September 17, 1976, Turner quietly made baseball history by promoting Bill Lucas, a former minor league infielder then working as the team’s farm director, to the title of vice president of player personnel and charged him with performing the duties of a GM — though Turner himself kept the GM title. Lucas became the first Black man to run a major league franchise, but alas died of a brain hemorrhage in May 1979 at age 43. Turner also brought back franchise icon Henry Aaron after his 1976 retirement. Aaron spent 13 years as vice president and director of player development before becoming a senior VP in 1989.

Turner wanted more free agents. During the 1976 season, commissioner Bowie Kuhn fined him $10,000 for tampering by having GM John Alevizos convey his interest to the agent of Giants outfielder Gary Matthews, an upcoming free agent. At a cocktail party during the World Series, Turner publicly challenged Giants owner Bob Lurie to outbid him for Matthews, and in November, signed the outfielder to a five-year, $1.875 million deal. After Lurie complained, Kuhn suspended Turner for one year while allowing the contract to stand. Kuhn also stripped the Braves of the third overall pick in the June amateur draft.

“I’m thankful he didn’t order me shot,” said Turner, who sought an injunction to block the suspension. While that process played out, on May 11, 1977, with the Braves having lost 16 straight games, he sent Bristol on a 10-day sabbatical “scouting trip,” donned a uniform, and appointed himself as “acting manager,” justifying the move as a chance to get an up-close look at his investment; coach Vern Benson made the lineup and dictated strategy. After the Braves lost to the Pirates, executives around the game voiced their disapproval. “By making himself manager, he’s making a bigger laughingstock out of the team than the losing streak is,” said Lurie. “It’s got to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in baseball,” said Padres GM Buzzie Bavasi. “Well, maybe they’ll Turner it around,” quipped White Sox GM Roland Hemond.

The next day, Feeney disallowed the move, ordering Bristol reinstated. On May 19, a federal judge upheld Kuhn’s right to suspend Turner but reinstated the draft pick. In September, while under suspension, Turner skippered the Courageous to victory in the 1977 America’s Cup, beating the challenger Australia in a four-race sweep.

Bristol was fired on October 25, 1977. The Braves’ board of directors focused on six candidates, including Berra and Howser, but did not talk to all of them; Niekro, the team’s 38-year-old ace, also threw his hat in the ring, but in the end, Turner chose Cox.

…

The Braves lost 187 games in Cox’s first two seasons, but with 1974 first-round pick Dale Murphy, originally a catcher, breaking out with a move to center field, the team went 81-80 in 1980, its best showing in six years, and drew over one million fans for the first time. In the strike-torn 1981 season, the Braves went a combined 50-56; additions of expensive free agents, such as reliever Al Hrabosky (signed in November 1979) and Claudell Washington (signed in November 1980), did nothing to change their fate. Shuffling the deck chairs, Turner dismissed Cox, whom the Blue Jays hired a week later. Toronto GM Pat Gillick, who as the Yankees’ coordinator of player development in the mid-1970s had worked with Cox, believed his new manager could mold a young team into a contender.

The Blue Jays had finished last in the seven-team AL East in each of their first four seasons and the first half of 1981 before rising to sixth in the second half of that year, but a booming farm system had already produced a two-time All-Star in righty Dave Stieb, a fifth-round 1978 pick. With Stieb having his first Cy Young-caliber season, righty Jim Clancy making his lone All-Star team, and youngsters Jesse Barfield, Lloyd Moseby, and Willie Upshaw acclimating to the majors, the team went 78-84 in 1982, finishing sixth, then jumped to 89 wins in ’83 and ’84, with finishes of fourth and second. Hitting coach Cito Gaston, a former minor league teammate of Cox who played for him in 1978, helped mold one of the game’s top offenses, led by Barfield, Moseby, and former Rule 5 pick George Bell. Stieb emerged as the AL’s top pitcher but never won a Cy Young.

Further fueled by the emergence of shortstop Tony Fernández — the crown jewel of the team’s pipeline of Dominican talent — and the shifts of Jimmy Key to the rotation and Tom Henke to closer, the Blue Jays went 99-62 in 1985, winning the AL East by two games over the Yankees. They took a three-games-to-one lead over the Royals in the first best-of-seven ALCS, but Cox’s gambit of starting Key, Doyle Alexander, and Stieb on three days of rest in Games 5 through 7 failed, and Kansas City’s young pitching held Toronto to five runs over those three games. The Royals completed the series comeback and went on to beat the Cardinals in the World Series.

“Bobby instilled winning,” former Blue Jays communication head Howard Starkman told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi. “We were only eight years into the business and all of a sudden we were one win from having the World Series at Exhibition Stadium… Bobby knew how to get the most out of players.”

Upon election to the Hall in 2013, Cox called his Toronto stint “one of the greatest experiences I ever had in baseball… I had more fun there than probably anywhere in the world.” But with his contract expired and his family still in Atlanta, he accepted Turner’s overture to return as GM.

After winning the NL West in 1982 — the first of Murphy’s back-to-back MVP seasons as he emerged as a wholesome icon ideal for marketing “America’s Team” — the Braves slipped to second in each of the next two years, with totals of 88 and 80 wins. Torre was fired, after which the team crashed to 66-96 under Eddie Haas and interim replacement Bobby Wine. Turner hired manager Chuck Tanner, who had won the 1979 World Series with the Pirates, before hiring Cox as GM.

The team barely improved, and Turner earned a reputation as such an easy mark for free agents that some approached him without being represented by agents, who were still comparatively new to the sport. Other owners disliked him, not only for his boorish, outspoken nature, but also for driving up salaries even while unsuccessfully pursuing the likes of Goose Gossage, Pete Rose, and Dave Winfield. Turner’s 1984 signing of Bruce Sutter to a six-year, $9.1 million contract included an outrageous 13% interest rate on deferred payments. That deal that looked worse when shoulder trouble hastened Sutter’s decline and ended his career prematurely.

Finally in 1986, team president Stan Kasten — who also served as the Hawks’ GM and president — advised Turner to lay off the big signings. “We had a last-place team with the highest payroll in baseball,” Kasten told The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner. He told Turner, “I know the ad boys who are selling our game on TV — which is the engine driving our train — need something to sell in the offseason, so you’re signing free agents every year… You’re also blocking the development of younger players and you’re giving up draft-pick compensation.”

“Stan, I don’t need a lecture. Just do it,” Turner told Kasten. He and Cox fell into line during the mid-1980s collusion scandal, where owners avoided poaching other teams’ free agents. Notably, in an incident described in John Helyar’s vastly entertaining Lords of the Realm, Cox withdrew an offer to free agent righty Bryn Smith, in part because the structure of Turner’s ownership fell under league scrutiny as he brought in minority partners to bail him out of debt after buying MGM and trying to buy CBS. Even while telling his fellow owners, “Gentlemen, we have the only legal monopoly in the country and we’re f—ing it up,” Turner could only afford to buck the system so hard.

From 1985–89 under Tanner (who was fired in early 1988) and Russ Nixon, the Braves annually lost between 89 and 106 games, never finishing higher than fifth, but below the surface, Cox was laying the groundwork for what would follow, aided by Snyder. They drafted pitchers Kent Mercker (1986), Steve Avery and Mark Wohlers (both 1988), outfielder Ryan Klesko (1989), and third baseman Chipper Jones (1990, with the first pick); all would soon contribute, as would 1983–85 draftees Glavine, Ron Gant, and David Justice, whom Cox inherited. Cox’s August 1987 trade of the veteran Alexander to the Tigers for Smoltz, a 20-year-old prospect, was a stroke of genius that also helped Detroit win its division; by 1989, Smoltz was an All-Star.

On June 22, 1990, with the team en route to a 65-97 record and its third straight season of attendance below one million, Cox fired Nixon and returned to the dugout. For as bad as things looked, the rotation — led by Glavine, Smoltz, and Charlie Leibrandt — emerged as a strength, Justice won NL Rookie of the Year, and Gant broke out. In the fall, Cox relinquished GM duties to Schuerholz, who had helped build the Royals into an AL powerhouse and at one point tried to hire Cox.

In 1991, Glavine won 20 games and his first Cy Young, Avery came into his own, and Schuerholz signee Terry Pendleton won the NL batting title and MVP award. The team won 94 games, including eight in a row from September 28 to October 4 to turn a two-game deficit into a division title. Thanks to back-to-back shutouts by Avery (the series MVP) and reliever Alejandro Peña in Game 6 and Smoltz in Game 7, the Braves outlasted the Barry Bonds/Bobby Bonilla Pirates in a thrilling NLCS to capture their first pennant since 1958.

The World Series against the Twins — who also vaulted from worst to first — proved to be an instant classic, with five games decided by one run and four via walk-off, three of which came in extra innings. The Twins won the first two in Minnesota, but the Braves took the next three in Atlanta. They lost Game 6 at the Metrodome on Kirby Puckett’s 11th-inning walk-off homer, and then Jack Morris shut out the Braves for 10 innings in Game 7; Smoltz, Mike Stanton, and Peña matched zeroes with Morris until Gene Larkin’s 10th-inning walk-off single against Peña decided the championship.

The agonizing near-miss was hardly the last. In 1992, after a 98-64 record and another NL West title, the Braves again outlasted the Pirates in a seven game NLCS, rallying for three runs in the bottom of the ninth against flagging starter Doug Drabek and reliever Stan Belinda. With two outs, pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera drove in the tying and winning runs for a 3-2 victory that sent the Braves back to the World Series to face the Blue Jays, now managed by Gaston.

Atlanta won Game 1 behind Glavine and catcher Damon Berryhill’s three-run homer off Morris (now a Blue Jay), but lost three one-run games in a row. After Smoltz beat Morris in Game 5, the Braves scratched out the tying run against Henke in the bottom of the ninth in Game 6 to send it to extras. Leibrandt, relegated to relief duty that postseason, yielded two runs in the top of the 11th. The Braves rallied to bring the tying run to third base before Otis Nixon — who had driven in the ninth-inning run — grounded out to end the series.

In December 1992, the Braves signed Maddux, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, to a five-year, $28 million deal, winning out over a reported $34 million bid by the rebuilding Yankees. With Maddux winning his second of an unprecedented four straight Cy Youngs, Glavine placing third, and Justice, midseason acquisition Fred McGriff, and Gant finishing 3-4-5 in the NL MVP voting, the 1993 team won a franchise-record 104 games. They needed every win to edge the Giants, who themselves had added Bonds in free agency, in the NL West standings, but fell to the Phillies in a six-game NLCS. The 1994 team was 68-46, second in the newly reorganized NL East behind the Expos, when the players’ strike began in August.

On May 7, 1995, two weeks into the strike-delayed season, Cox was arrested at his home and charged with simple battery for allegedly punching his wife Pamela and pulling her hair during a domestic dispute. The police report said Cox was intoxicated and that his wife had visible swelling and redness on the left side of her face. She said he had spilled a drink on the carpet while the couple had guests over and that she had made a comment about it; the alleged assault occurred after their guests departed. In the report, Pamela Cox “stated that this has occurred many times before, but (she) never called the police because of possible media attention” and the effect on their children, the youngest of whom witnessed the attack. Cox admitted to pulling his wife’s hair and calling her a name but denied hitting her, according to the report. He added “that she also has been violent in the past, and that he hit her in reflex to her assault on him.”

In a joint press conference two days later, Pamela “said she didn’t make statements to police about physical abuse in the past or on Sunday night and didn’t know why they were in the police report,” according to a newspaper report in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. More:

“Said Pam Cox of the dispute: ‘It was just a personal problem… that had been escalating. We needed to talk about this a month ago, but due to the (Braves’) extended spring training it just kept escalating.’

“Bobby Cox, who said, “I’m just not a good listener,” said the couple will attempt to resolve their problems with the assistance of counseling. But he strongly denied the charge that he hit his wife.”

While today Major League Baseball would have placed Cox on leave and likely would have disciplined him in accordance with its domestic violence policy, at the time neither the league nor the Braves imposed any penalty on Cox — or even investigated the matter. The couple attended court-ordered counseling, after which the charges were dropped.

On the field, the Braves put it all together in 1995, going 90-54 to begin their string of NL East titles. Maddux and Glavine finished first and third in the Cy Young voting, and McGriff, Justice, Klesko, and rookie Chipper Jones all hit at least 20 home runs. After steamrolling the Rockies in a four-game Division Series, the Braves held the Reds to five runs in a four-game NLCS sweep. In a tight six-game World Series, the Braves limited a powerhouse Cleveland lineup that included Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Manny Ramirez, and future Hall of Famers Eddie Murray and Jim Thome to just 19 runs; five games were decided by one run. The Braves secured their championship — the franchise’s first since 1957, when it played in Milwaukee, and the first ever for an Atlanta team in a major professional sport — when Glavine (the Series MVP) and Wohlers combined for a one-hit shutout, backing Justice’s solo homer in a 1-0 victory. “The team of the Nineties has its world championship!” exclaimed NBC announcer Bob Costas.

“At last, at last,” said an elated Turner, whose five-year plan to bring Atlanta fans a championship instead took two decades. In September 1995, just before all of that went down, he agreed to sell Turner Broadcasting — which by that point owned CNN, TBS, TNT, the Cartoon Network — as well as the Braves to Time Warner for $7.5 billion dollars worth of stock. The deal, which took just over a year to complete, made Turner the vice chairman of Time Warner and its largest single shareholder (10%), but he relinquished control of the Braves, from whom he’d already stepped back.

“I’ve been a C.E.O. for 33 years, and that’s a long time for anyone,” Turner said when the deal was first announced. “I’m married to Jane Fonda, so I know what it’s like to be No. 2,” he added, referring to his third wife, who would help shape his political evolution and his latter-day philanthropic efforts.

The regular-season dominance continued, as the Braves annually led the NL in wins from 1996–99, with the majors’ best record in ’97 (101-61) and ’99 (103-59), and a new franchise record of 106 wins in ’98. Smoltz’s 1996 Cy Young ended Maddux’s four-year reign, and after the Braves swept the Dodgers in the Division Series and beat the Cardinals in a seven-game NLCS, 19-year-old Andruw Jones, a late-season call-up, clubbed two homers in the World Series opener against Torre’s Yankees. But while the Braves won the first two games in New York, the Yankees took four straight in Atlanta to capture their first championship since 1978.

After winning four pennants in five years, Cox’s Braves ran into buzzsaws in the postseason in 1997 and ’98, falling to the Marlins and Padres in a pair of six-game NLCS. The team did return to the World Series in 1999, the year Chipper Jones won NL MVP honors, but was swept by the Yankees in the World Series.

Cox’s Braves continued to win division titles, but from 2000–05, they were ousted in the Division Series all but once, with three straight Game 5 losses from ’02–04. The great rotation, the foundation of the team’s success, scattered. Smoltz lost his 2000 season to Tommy John surgery and returned as a reliever. Glavine defected to the Mets after 2002, and Maddux rejoined the Cubs after ’03. The farm system produced NL Rookie of the Year Rafael Furcal in 2000 and a solid second baseman in Marcus Giles in ’01, but it would take until the ’05 arrivals of Jeff Francoeur and Brian McCann before factoring in again. In 2006, after Mazzone departed to join the Orioles, the Braves slipped to 79-83, their first losing season since 1990, and their first of four straight outside the postseason; they sandwiched winning records around a 72-90 crash in 2008.

On September 23, 2009, Cox announced he would return for one final season. With a lineup anchored by McCann and rookie Jason Heyward and a staff led by Tim Hudson and Billy Wagner, the 2010 Braves rose to the occasion by going 91-71 and claiming the NL Wild Card, but the eventual champion Giants ousted them in the Division Series. All four games were decided by one run, but the Braves scored just 11 total.

Such offensive droughts, or at least a lack of timely hitting, often doomed Cox’s postseason teams despite the starters’ great efforts. While Smoltz went 15-4 with a 2.65 ERA for the Braves in October, Glavine went 12-15 with a 3.44 ERA, and Maddux 11-13 with a 2.81 ERA. In 129 postseason games from 1991–2010 under Cox, the Braves outscored opponents 539-472 but went 64-65, including 19-25 in one-run games and 5-7 in walk-offs. Their batting clutch score in that span was -3.20, their pitching clutch score -0.44 — in other words, they underperformed, particularly on the offensive side.

Upon retiring, Cox continued as a team consultant, but he suffered a massive stroke after participating in the Braves’ home opener in 2019. Though his condition eventually improved somewhat, he never regained full capacity for speech or the use of his right arm, and made it to Truist Park — where a statue of him was unveiled in 2017 — just three times, the last on August 22, 2025 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his championship team.

Turner’s volatility and Cox’s steadiness made them quite an odd couple. Both men had their flaws, but they paired well. Together and separately, they left an indelible mark on baseball.

Happy last day of February, everyone. By this time next week, the World Baseball Classic will have begun, allowing us to experience the best of what our global game has to offer. Earlier this month, Kiri Oler previewed the WBC with four team-by-team breakdown pieces, one for each pool, and we’ll have more coverage next week leading into the tournament. Also, I’ll be in Miami covering Pool D, which features Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, Israel, and Nicaragua, so if you have any questions related to the first-round action at loanDepot park, you know how to reach me.

Of course, the World Baseball Classic isn’t the only baseball we have to look forward to in March. We are less than four weeks away from Opening Day! This year marks the earliest traditional Opening Day in MLB history, with 14 games scheduled for Thursday, March 26. The night before, the Giants will host the Yankees for the first game of the season. That standalone primetime matchup will air on Netflix of all places, because we all needed another streaming service subscription.

Anyway, in this week’s mailbag, we’ll be answering your questions about the NL Central, the value of a foul ball, a hypothetical Hall of Fame election in which every player regained eligibility for one year, and the most and least valuable baseball last names. Before we do, though, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a big believer in the value of WAR as a statistic. Like any summary stat, WAR is notably imperfect, with its nods to pragmatism, compromises made on philosophical grounds, and the necessary inclusion of many components that are just damn difficult to quantify even if we have a basis to think they’re important. Still, like all good models, even if WAR isn’t right, it can be useful. It gives us a broad estimate of a player’s overall contribution to winning baseball games, and almost certainly provides a far better conception of which individual actions lead to wins than generally existed, say, 50 years ago. But when we’re talking about whether a player is a Hall of Famer, a more malleable concept than what wins the most games, is WAR the right measure to look at? When I think about this question, four people instantly come to mind: Jacob deGrom, Miguel Cabrera, Jack Morris, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Since FanGraphs is a website dedicated to baseball, we’ll start by talking about Mozart. Even people who don’t really listen to classical music, and thus couldn’t tell Gustav Mahler from Rick Mahler, would almost certainly count Mozart among the greatest composers of all time. Why? Well, the first part is obvious: because of his body of work as a whole. But what aspects of that work make him great? I’d submit that it’s the quality of his best compositions, rather than the massive volume of work he produced, that pushes him ahead of his peers.

Mozart is a legend because of his greatest works, such as his last three symphonies, his late 1780s/early 1790s run of operas, and the latter half of his piano concertos — and I could go on! But he also wrote a lot of stuff that just isn’t that good. He was a musical prodigy, but almost all of his early work is interesting because he was very young when he wrote it, not because of its own merits. Composers have always had to pay the bills, and Mozart wrote a huge amount of what was more or less intended to be pleasant background music, no more compelling than the peppy ukulele and xylophone music that seemed to be in every Kickstarter video in 2017. If the hundreds of examples of such work were to simply blink out of existence because someone got a hold of the Infinity Gauntlet, it would change nothing about Mozart’s greatness. Those compositions had value to Mozart in that they enabled him to write the good stuff that is worth remembering, but he’s great because of his peak. Read the rest of this entry »

All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In the 121-year history of the modern World Series, just once has a player hit a walk-off home run in the seventh and deciding game. In the finale of the 1960 World Series, Bill Mazeroski, the light-hitting second baseman for the Pirates, connected for a solo homer off the Yankees’ Ralph Terry, driving the ball over the brick left field wall of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field to deliver a shocking upset and produce one of the most indelible moments in baseball history. While it wasn’t entirely out of character — Mazeroski had already homered once in that World Series and would hit 138 regular season home runs for his career — the 24-year-old second baseman rode the notoriety of that conclusive blast right into Cooperstown. A well-decorated fielding whiz who never managed a league-average season at the plate, he was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2001, and a quarter-century later remains a controversial choice.

Mazeroski’s home run stands among the game’s most famous, up there with Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot” in the 1932 World Series, Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” to win the 1951 pennant for the New York Giants and Joe Carter’s 1993 World Series-ending two-run homer, which unlike Mazeroski’s — which broke a 9-9 tie — turned a potential defeat into victory, albeit in Game 6, not Game 7. One might swap out another homer for Ruth’s, such as Ted Williams’ career-capping blast from 1960, Henry Aaron’s record-breaking 715th from 1974, or signature October blasts by Bucky Dent, Carlton Fisk, or Kirk Gibson, but if there’s a Mount Rushmore of homers, Mazeroski’s claim on a spot is rock-solid.

“Every day of my life I think of that home run. Wouldn’t you if you had hit it?” Mazeroski later said with typical humility. “People always are reminding me of it. I suppose it must be the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

Mazeroski died on Friday in Lansdale, Pennsylvania at the age of 89, according to the Pirates. No cause of death was given. He is the second member of those 1960 champions to pass away this month, after reliever Elroy Face, who died on February 12.

In a 17-year career with the Pirates (1956–1972), Mazeroski won eight Gold Gloves and made 10 All-Star teams, counting the three seasons in the 1959–62 span during which he was selected for both games. Renowned for his impeccable footwork, sure hands, and lightning-quick pivot, he led NL second basemen in double plays in eight consecutive years (1960–67) and is the career leader in that category, with 1,706. Meanwhile, he’s fifth at the position in assists (6,685), seventh in putouts (4,974), and 11th in games (2,094). Based on Total Zone’s estimates, his 147 fielding runs ranks third among players who played at least 50% of their games at the position, behind only Bid McPhee (154 from 1882–99) and Joe Gordon (150 from 1938–50). Mazeroski did all of this while wearing an exceptionally small glove to prevent the ball from getting lost in the webbing, and while playing the vast majority of his home games on Forbes Field’s notoriously hard infield, which longtime Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince dubbed “alabaster plaster.”

“Everybody talked about his quick hands, but nobody talked about his leg work,” former Pirates general manager Joe L. Brown said of Mazeroski in 2001. “[Manager] Danny Murtaugh used to say his legs were so quick, so agile, he had the leg control of a ballet dancer.”

“He had marvelous range, great instincts and never threw to the wrong base,” Dick Groat, Mazeroski’s primary double play partner from 1956–62, told ESPN for its SportsCentury series. “If I would move Maz and tell him to play here or play there, I never had to tell him a second time. Ever.”

Gene Alley, the Pirates’ regular shortstop from 1964–72, explained Mazeroski’s quickness on the double play to ESPN:

“Maz never really caught the ball, never really closed his glove over it, turning the double play. He could tilt his glove at an angle and hold his hand just so. It was a wonder the ball stayed in there. Then it would slide out in his hand just like that. He was the only one I ever saw do it like that.”

By contrast, Mazeroski was not much of a hitter, though his 12 seasons of everyday play (1957–68) did help him amass 2,016 hits. For his career, he batted .260/.299/.367, making him the only Hall of Fame position player with an on-base percentage below .300. Among that group, his 84 OPS+ is ahead of only shortstops Luis Aparicio and Rabbit Maranville (both 82) and catcher Ray Schalk (83).

William Stanley Mazeroski was born on September 5, 1936 in Wheeling, West Virginia, about 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The family — parents Louis and Mayme, sister Mary and Bill — lived on the other side of the Ohio River, in a one-room tumbledown house with no electricity or indoor plumbing in Little Rush Run, Ohio. Louis was a coal miner who had been a standout sandlot shortstop, getting a tryout with Cleveland before his foot was crushed in a mining accident at age 17.

Despite — or because of — the injury, Louis tried to live out his major league dreams by teaching his son baseball starting at a very young age, sharpening his reflexes and adjusting to bad hops by fielding tennis balls that caromed off a brick wall. Though the younger Mazeroski only grew to be 5-foot-11, he starred as a center for Warren Consolidated High School’s basketball team, earning Second Team All-Ohio honors as a senior and receiving scholarship offers from Ohio State, Duquesne, and West Virginia University. On the diamond he was a four-year letterman, starring as a shortstop and pitcher. Despite having only 60 students in his graduating class, the school’s team made it all the way to the finals of the state championship tournament in 1953. Mazeroski drew interest from scouts for Cleveland, the Phillies, Red Sox, and White Sox, as well as the Pirates. He chose Pittsburgh because it was the only team willing to start him above Class D, signing for a $4,000 bonus.

Mazeroski was still just 17 when he began his career at A-level Williamsport, where he hit a mere .235/.291/.333 with three home runs in 93 games in 1954. He was a full-time shortstop that season, but the following spring, general manager Branch Rickey decided that between his arm strength and impressive ability to make the pivot on the double play, Mazeroski was better suited to second. The Pirates started him at Hollywood of the Pacific Coast League in 1955 — then considered one level above Triple-A — but he struggled in 20 games there before returning to Williamsport, where, as an 18-year-old in a league where the average age was 24, he hit a much more impressive .293/.354/.438 with 11 homers in 114 games. He played well enough in a return to Hollywood in 1956 (.306/.358/.465, his only time with a .300 batting average at any level) that the Pirates called him up in early July. On July 7, 1956, 59 days before his 20th birthday, he debuted, collecting a single off the Giants’ Johnny Antonelli in his first plate appearance. He spent his first five weeks with his batting average generally below .200, but heated up in mid-August during a stretch that included his first home run, one of three hits he collected off the Phillies’ Robin Roberts, a future Hall of Famer, on August 16. He finished the season with a .243/.290/.318 (67 OPS+) line and three homers in 81 games.

The Pirates finished seventh in the NL with a 66-88 record in 1956, their first time escaping last place since ’51, and their first with Brown as their GM; even with Rickey in that role, they had lost 317 games from 1952–54, but by the time Mazeroski had arrived, the youth movement was showing returns. Rickey had signed Groat in June 1952, and had plucked 20-year-old Roberto Clemente from the Dodgers as a Rule 5 pick in November 1954, while Brown traded for center fielder Bill Virdon in mid-1955. Though the Pirates actually backslid to 62-92 in 1957, they went 26-25 after Murtaugh took over from the fired Bobby Bragan — a move that came as a relief to the young Mazeroski, who later told Sports Illustrated, “I suddenly felt as if an elephant had just climbed down off my shoulders.”

Aided by hitting coach George Sisler, Mazeroski learned to use the whole field better instead of trying to pull every ball. He improved to a respectable .283/.318/.407 (96 OPS+) with eight home runs and 3.6 WAR in 1957, his first full season. The Pirates rocketed to 84-70 and a second-place finish in 1958, with the 21-year-old Mazeroski having what would stand as his best season on both sides of the ball. He hit .275/.308/.439 (97 OPS+) with 19 homers, was elected to start his first All-Star Game, won his first Gold Glove, and ranked seventh in the NL with 4.7 WAR. While he would match both that mark and its underlying 23 fielding runs in 1963, he would never surpass those numbers.

After marrying Milene Nicholson, the secretary of the Pirates’ head of scouting, in October 1958, Mazeroski failed to keep in shape during that offseason, reporting to spring training 15 pounds overweight. He lost range, and a pulled muscle in his leg didn’t help; while he was selected for both All-Star games, he slipped to a 67 OPS+ and 0.2 WAR. With Sisler counseling him to move deeper in the batter’s box and wait on curveballs until they broke, he rebounded to .273/.320/.392 (94 OPS+) with 11 home runs and 2.5 WAR in 1960, again starting both All-Star Games and claiming his second Gold Glove. Led by Groat and third baseman Don Hoak — who finished second to Groat in the NL MVP voting — as well as Clemente and Cy Young winner Vern Law, the Pirates won 95 games and took home their first pennant since 1927.

Though the World Series against the Yankees went down to the final pitch, New York’s three wins were all by at least 10 runs — 16-3 in Game 2, 10-0 in Game 3, and 12-0 in Game 6 — while the Pirates’ were all by three runs or fewer. In the aggregate, the Pirates were outscored 55-27 and outhit 91-60, though they benefited from Yankees manager Casey Stengel’s curious decision not to start Whitey Ford in Game 1, thus keeping him lined up for starts in Games 4 and 7. Ford instead started only Games 3 and 6, a decision that contributed to the 70-year-old Stengel’s losing his job shortly after the series despite having led the Yankees to 10 pennants and seven championships in 12 years.

Mazeroski went 2-for-4 in Game 1, with a two-run homer off Jim Coates in the fourth inning of a 6-4 win. He collected hits in each of the next four games as well, including a two-run double to chase starter Art Ditmar in the second inning of Game 5.

In Game 7, the Pirates took an early 4-0 lead, with Mazeroski contributing a bunt single to load the bases in the second inning before coming around to score. Aided by home runs by Bill Skowron and Yogi Berra, the Yankees rebounded, and by the eighth inning they led 7-4. The Pirates answered back by scoring five runs in the eighth — all without Mazeroski batting — with Hal Smith’s two-out, three-run homer off Coates giving them a 9-7 lead. The Yankees tied the game in the top of the ninth against reliever Harvey Haddix, but as Roger Angell later recalled, Mazeroski made a key defensive play with two outs and Mickey Mantle on first:

… a great play that will forever go insufficiently sung, because of what happened afterward and because it was a simple force at second. Indeed with the fleet Mantle barreling toward second on the pitch, [Pirates shortstop] Dick Groat’s best play on Skowron’s grounder into the hole was to first. Groat, however, after bobbling the ball slightly, looked to Mazeroski and rushed his throw, which went wide, surely wider than the compactly put-together Maz could stretch. But Maz, for whom second base is T.S. Eliot’s “still point of the turning world,” seemed to lay every fibre of his being end to end for an instant to snag Groat’s throw and nip the sliding Mantle by a heartbeat. And then he jogged in toward the bottom of the ninth and immortality.

That set up Mazeroski’s leadoff at-bat against Terry, who had relieved Coates following Smith’s homer and retired Hoak on a fly ball to end the eighth. Terry, who had warmed up five times since the first inning, fell behind 1-0 as Mazeroski passed on a shoulder-high fastball off the plate. His next pitch — a slider that didn’t slide — was over the plate, and Mazeroski clouted it over the left field wall, with Berra (in left field) and Mantle (in center) giving half-hearted chase but having no chance. Pandemonium ensued as fans stormed the field while Mazeroski rounded the bases, batting helmet in hand.

Remarkably, Mazeroski — who hit .320/.320/.640 with five RBI — was not named the World Series MVP. Instead, the honor went to Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson, who drove in 12 runs, a record now shared with Freddie Freeman of the 2024 Dodgers. The MVP vote had been taken in the eighth inning of Game 7, and it remains the only time since the award’s inception (in 1955) that it went to a member of the losing team. Mazeroski did win that year’s Babe Ruth Award, given by the New York BBWAA chapter to the most outstanding player in the postseason.

For as climactic as it was, Mazeroski’s homer ranks only eighth in terms of championship win probability added (cWPA). As MLB.com’s Mike Petriello explained last fall in the wake of the Dodgers’ thrilling Game 7 win over the Blue Jays, Hal Smith’s homer in the previous inning turned a one-run deficit into a two-run lead, increasing the Pirates’ championship odds by 63.6%. Mazeroski’s homer “only” improved their chances by 36.7% — which is to say that with no outs and the score tied in a walk-off situation, the odds of the Pirates winning at the point of his homer were already higher.

Just 24 years old at the time of his signature blast, Mazeroski still had plenty of baseball ahead of him. He spent the next eight seasons as the Pirates’ starting second baseman, hitting a combined .262/.298/.368 (87 OPS+) while averaging 152 games, 10 home runs, 13 fielding runs, and 3.1 WAR per year. He won five straight Gold Gloves in that span (1963–67), perennially leading NL second basemen in most key defensive categories, and started All-Star Games in 1962 (twice) and ’67, while making the teams as a reserve two other times. After Groat was traded to the Cardinals in November 1962, the Pirates appointed Mazeroski team captain.

The Pirates’ competitive fortunes ebbed and flowed across the eight seasons following their World Series title. They won 93 games in 1962, 90 in ’65, and 92 in ’66, but they also finished below .500 four times in those eight seasons, and right at .500 once. They placed third in a 10-team league in both 1965 and ’66, three games behind the Dodgers in the latter season, but in the years before division play and wild cards, that wasn’t enough. Murtaugh stepped down after 1964 due to health concerns, though he returned to the dugout for the second half of 1967, when he guided the team to a 39–39 record after Harry Walker was fired.

Mazeroski had proven ultra-durable during that span. From 1964–67, he reached the 162-game mark three times, with a high of 163 (including a tie game) in ’67. He missed the first 21 games of the 1965 season after fracturing a metatarsal in his right foot, and played in just 130 games that year. In 1969, a recurrent hamstring injury limited him to just 67 games, including just six after June 29. With Murtaugh back at the helm in 1970, Mazeroski played 112 games, but his 65 OPS+ and 1.1 WAR both suggested the Pirates could do better, and as the season went on, he increasingly yielded to 22-year-old rookie Dave Cash. On June 28, 1970, Mazeroski did have the distinction of recording the final out of Forbes Field’s 62-year history on a forceout at second off the bat of the Cubs’ Don Kessinger; this, after he had collected the Pirates’ final hit at the ballpark, an eighth-inning double. Another double, on August 17 off the Astros’ Wade Blasingame, marked Mazeroski’s 2,000th career hit.

The Pirates went 89-73 in 1970, winning the NL East, but they were swept by the Reds in the best-of-five National League Championship Series, with Mazeroski going hitless in his only start in Game 3. Reduced to a reserve role, he slipped below replacement level in 1971 and ’72, but nonetheless served as a valued mentor to the team’s younger players, including Cash and fellow second baseman Rennie Stennett. The Pirates repeated as NL East champions in both seasons; in those postseasons, Mazeroski was limited to pinch-hit duty. His pinch-single in the second inning of Game 4 of the 1971 NLCS off the Giants’ Gaylord Perry led to a game-tying three-run homer by Richie Hebner. The Pirates clinched the series that afternoon, and went on to beat the Orioles in the World Series.

Mazeroski retired after the 1972 season, moving directly into a role as the team’s third base coach under Virdon, who despite winning the division title as a rookie manager didn’t make it through the following season; Murtaugh came out of retirement in September. Mazeroski didn’t return to coach in 1974, but did coach third for the Mariners in ’78 and ’79. He often served as a spring instructor for the Pirates, making an impression upon yet another generation of players. In 2010, he tutored Neil Walker as he made the conversion from third base to second. “He was in either his late 60s or early 70s at that time, and he was still pretty impressive,” Walker recalled in the wake of Mazeroski’s death. “The hands were still there, the glove was still there, the footwork was still there. The eyes were probably going a little bit, but it was just incredible.”

The Pirates honored Mazeroski by retiring his no. 9 in 1987. After his election to the Hall of Fame in 2001, the team named a street outside PNC Park Mazeroski Way in his honor. On his birthday in 2010, a bronze statue commemorating his jubilant trip around the bases following his Series-winning homer was unveiled along the Allegheny River outside PNC Park. Forbes Field was razed in 1972, but a plaque commemorating Mazeroski’s home run still stands on the site, along with a portion of the brick outfield wall. Since October 13, 1985, on the 25th anniversary of the home run, fans gather at the spot every year to rewatch the game, timing it so that Mazeroski’s home run happens at 3:36 p.m., as it originally did. For the 50th anniversary in 2010, Mazeroski and over 1,000 fans showed up to celebrate.

Mazeroski became eligible for election to the Hall of Fame on the BBWAA’s 1978 ballot. He scraped by with just 6.1% of the vote, didn’t reach double digits until 1983, and after five years spent in the 30% range, topped out at 42.3% in ’92, his final year of eligibility. Starting in 1996, his case was taken up by the Veterans Committee on an annual basis. With Brown serving as the committee’s chairman — and alas keeping alive the VC’s long history of cronyism — Mazeroski didn’t lack for support. After falling one vote short of election in 2000, he was elected the next year. Ted Williams, who had served on the committee since 1986 and had been frank about his unwillingness to support Mazeroski due to his weak offense, missed the 2001 vote while recovering from open-heart surgery. Instead of needing 12 out 15 votes to clear 75%, Mazeroski only needed 11 out of 14, and he squeaked through.

It would be an understatement to suggest that the election sparked controversy. “The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee was created to rectify mistakes. Which means its next act should be self-abolishment,” wrote the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. Implicitly, the Hall agreed, overhauling the committee format so that all living Hall of Famers, all Spink and Frick Award winners (writers and broadcasters), and all VC panelists whose terms had not expired (a group that did not include Brown) would have a vote on a biennial basis, starting in 2003.

“You dream of a lot of things,” Mazeroski said of his election, steering clear of the controversy. “You want to be in the big leagues. You want to make the All-Star Game. You want to be in a World Series. You want to do all those things. But you never dream of this. It’s pretty exciting. I just hope I can live up to it.”

Though he began his induction speech by noting he’d written 12 pages, Mazeroski ended up delivering one of the shortest speeches in Hall history. “I think defense belongs in the Hall of Fame. Defense deserves as much credit as pitching and hitting, and I’m proud and honored to be going into the Hall of Fame on the defensive side and mostly for my defensive abilities,” he said. Overcome by emotion, he continued for just a couple more minutes. “I thought when the Pirates retired my number that would be the greatest thing ever to happen to me… I think you can kiss those 12 pages down the drain… I want to thank all the friends and family who made this long trip up here to listen to me speak and hear this crap.”

Does Mazeroski belong in Cooperstown? By the advanced statistics, his case is flimsy. Even with his strong standing in fielding runs, his 36.5 career WAR and 31.2 JAWS both rank just 52nd, lower than any non-Negro Leagues Hall of Famer at the position, in the general vicinity of other glove wizards such as Placido Polanco, Mark Ellis, and Frank White, not to mention a less accomplished defender who hit a game-winning homer in a World Series Game 7, Howie Kendrick.

Such is the power of one fateful swing of the bat. Defense alone is rarely enough to get a player to Cooperstown, but defense and one of the most famous and enduring home runs in baseball history? That’s another story.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Last week, BBWAA voters elected Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones to the Hall of Fame — and in doing so, they once again foiled my chances at a perfect five-year projection of upcoming elections. Not that I had any real expectation of running the table given my spotty track record regarding this endeavor, but while a year ago I correctly projected that Beltrán, who received 70.3% on the 2025 ballot, would make it this year, I was somewhat surprised that Jones, who received 66.2% last time — leaving him with what has typically been roughly coin-toss odds of reaching 75% the next year — made it as well.

If I’ve learned anything from 14 years of doing these five-year outlooks, dating back to the wrap-up of my 2014 election coverage at SI.com, it’s humility, because there are far more ways to be wrong in this endeavor than to be right; when a candidate gets elected more quickly than I expect, or lags relative to my expectations, it creates a ripple effect. The presence of a high-share holdover means less space for and less attention paid to the mid-ballot holdovers, so clearing one from the ballot can have ramifications that won’t be felt for a few years; likewise, a more rapid election than predicted can accelerate other candidates’ timelines. What’s more, the Hall can change the rules for election without warning, and candidates can do unforeseen things that compromise their chances.

The first time I tried this was so long ago that candidates still had 15 years of eligibility instead of 10, so I could afford to project Tim Raines for election in 2018, his 11th year of eligibility. The Hall’s unilateral decision to truncate candidacies to 10 years would come just months later, though thankfully voters accelerated their acceptance of Raines, who was elected in 2017. Both the eligibility shortening and Hall vice chairman Joe Morgan’s open letter pleading with voters not to elect candidates linked to performance-enhancing drugs changed the landscape in ways I couldn’t foresee. Meanwhile, Ichiro Suzuki made a two-game comeback that bumped his eligibility back a year, Curt Schilling found increasingly elaborate ways to offend voters, Omar Vizquel became the subject of multiple allegations of domestic violence against his wife and sexual harassment of an autistic batboy, and Beltrán lost a shot at first-year election because of his involvement in the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme. My Magic 8 Ball didn’t see any of that coming. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

The 2026 Hall of Fame election is history, with a pair of center fielders who were born one day apart, fourth-year candidate Carlos Beltrán (born April 24, 1977) and ninth-year candidate Andruw Jones (born April 23, 1977), elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America. This is the fourth time two players from the same position besides pitcher were elected by the writers in the same year. Right fielders Harry Heilmann and Paul Waner were the first pair in 1952, followed by right fielders Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson in ’82, with left fielders Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice elected in 2009. That’s some impressive company!

Beltrán and Jones will be inducted into the Hall along with Contemporary Baseball honoree Jeff Kent on July 26, 2026, on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York. There’s no official word yet on which caps the players will be wearing on their plaques — the Hall has the final word — but odds are they’ll be the ones that you expect. Said Beltrán, who’s currently a special assistant for the Mets, “There’s no doubt that the Mets are a big part of my identity.” Kent has expressed his desire to wear a Giants cap, and Jones is almost certain to wear a Braves cap.

As usual, beyond the topline results, there’s plenty to digest from Tuesday’s returns. So as promised, here’s my candidate-by-candidate breakdown of the entire slate of 27 candidates, 13 of whom will return to the ballot next year. Note that references to percentages in Ryan Thibodaux’s indispensable Tracker may distinguish between what was logged at the time of the announcement at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday (245 total ballots) and what’s in there as of Thursday at 9 a.m. ET (254 total ballots) Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

When it comes to center fielders and the Hall of Fame, BBWAA voters have been a particularly picky lot. It’s all too easy to say, “This guy was no Ty Cobb,” or “This guy was no Willie Mays.” Who can live up to standards like that? Until Tuesday, just nine center fielders had been elected by the writers, fewer than any other position, but when Josh Rawitch announced the results of the 2026 balloting, two more joined them: fourth-year candidate Carlos Beltrán and ninth-year candidate Andruw Jones.

Beltrán, a five-tool player with 2,725 career hits, 312 stolen bases and the no. 9 ranking among center fielders in JAWS, received 84.2% of the vote, up from 70.3% last year. He had to overcome some initial resistance to his candidacy owing to his involvement in the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scandal at the end of his career while helping the Astros win the 2017 World Series. Commissioner Rob Manfred’s 2020 report placed him at the center of Houston’s scheme, and it cost him his job as Mets skipper before he could manage a single game. Despite his transgression, he received 46.5% of the vote in his 2023 ballot debut, and followed with three straight years of double-digit gains. Read the rest of this entry »